I've always believed that LitRPG books were not for me. Still believe this, to be honest. But given the rising popularity of Matt Dinniman's series, something had to give and I knew I'd ultimately give at least the first installment a shot. When the last week of my trip to El Salvador and Guatemala went down the crapper due to a variety of reasons, and especially the last day which saw me spend two hours waiting and then being questioned by a US immigration officer and missing my connecting flight back home and get stranded in Miami for the night, God knows I needed something light and funny to take my mind off all that shit. Dungeon Crawler Carl appeared to be just what the doctor ordered.
And it turned out to be the perfect remedy to get me out of that funk! The most fun I've had reading in a mighty long time! If you need a palate cleanser, or are just looking for pure comedy gold featuring a talking cat and a man with no pants, this novel's for you!
Here's the blurb:
The apocalypse will be televised!
You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.
Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the Dungeon. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.
To put it simply, LitRPG is a literary genre blending science-fiction and fantasy with video game and computer RPGs mechanics and conventions. Think character stats, experience points gained by battling creatures and completing quests, numerical rules, and a structure focusing on progression and character advancement. Expect character sheets, levels, and loot earned by killing enemies and bosses. It's all progression-oriented, with the plotlines heavily emphasizing on leveling up in order for the story to progress. As such, everything about this is unappealing to me. I feel that it's an inordinate amount of gimmicks getting in the way of the storytelling.
And yet, though it features all of these gimmicks, somehow Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl, through its humor and originality, manages to sidestep numerous pitfalls and keep everything fresh and entertaining. Whether or not the author can sustain this level of interest for seven volumes, with the next one coming up soon, remains to be seen. But I found the first installment to be an often laugh-out-loud wild ride that made me go through the whole thing in just a few sittings. Even so, those RPGs elements were already getting a bit repetitive. Not enough to truly get on my nerves this time around, but I can already see this becoming a bit of a problem as I continue to read the series. Let's hope that Dinniman can keep the plot fun and interesting enough for me to overlook the gimmicks that would normally force me to DNF a novel.
The worldbuilding is absurd from the beginning. And yet, this first volume also appears to contain a lot of foreshadowing for what will follow. So there could be a lot more than meets the eye here. Time will tell if that's the case or not. In any event, forget about conventional SFF worldbuilding. As other reviews claimed, in order to enjoy Dungeon Crawler Carl, you must be willing to embrace the ridiculous. Everything is unpredictable and over-the-top. In many ways, it's the absurdity of it all that makes everything so engaging. You never know what to expect and that's what makes this one such a fun read.
Chances are that your sense of humor might be what will make you love or hate this book. Dungeon Crawler Carl is filled to the brim with quirky, dark, and often juvenile humor that won't appeal to everyone. Lowbrow? Absolutely! Don't expect the sophisticated wit of a Terry Pratchett or the gallows humor of a Joe Abercrombie. Nowadays, publishers have manuscripts go through sensitivity readings to make sure they don't offend anyone, or at least as little as humanly possible. These novels were originally self-published and they obviously didn't go through such a process. Which means that there is an amount of snark throughout that I really loved and found refreshing. The obnoxious AI that announces the Achievements Unlocked and provides details to Carl and Princess Donut almost always made me chuckle.
First-person narratives are always tricky because there's only a single perspective and no way to fall back on anyone else's POV. Carl is flawed enough to be the perfect point of view in a world that has totally gone to shit. Being forced to go through this ordeal with his ex-girlfriend's cat is hilarious in so many ways that you need to read this book to truly understand. Indeed, this unlikely duo is what gives Dungeon Crawler Carl its unique flavor. The supporting cast doesn't shine that much in this first installment. But again, there seems to be a lot of foreshadowing that hints at a lot more to come for the protagonists and all those men/women/beasts they've met along the way.
Dark, bizarre, humorous, insanely imaginative; that's Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl in a nutshell. Here's to hoping that Carl and Princess Donut's journey through the lower levels of the dungeon will be as fun and entertaining as this first volume turned out to be.
The final verdict: 8/10
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